What’s the Cost and Financial Value of College?

“Indeed, the much-discussed idea of an “education bubble” — that college costs have soared too high to make a degree worthwhile — is a “dangerous myth that leads people to make bad choices,” said David Autor, an MIT labor economist who has extensively studied the relationship between education and earnings. Instead, Autor said, the best evidence shows that a college degree leads to a lifetime earnings increase of $250,000 to $300,000, even after subtracting the cost of higher education. Those returns, Autor noted, apply to graduates regardless of their undergraduate majors: Humanities students benefit just as science, engineering or business students do. And all evidence suggests education remains a key to social mobility in America, noted Janice Eberly… Moreover, Eberly said, “These benefits accrue not only to individuals but society more broadly,”…”